cbr17bingo: migrant
I knew little about Iran and nothing about refugees prior to reading this memoir, which is an important, and at times distressing, book. Dina Nayeri primarily writes about her family’s flight from Iran, with the book broken into five sections that correspond to elements of this flight: Escape, Camp, Asylum, Assimilation, and Cultural Repatriation. Told from a non-linear perspective and interspersed with stories of other refugees’ lives, Nayeri depicts the arduous, often trauma-filled journey that refugees go on and the long-lasting impact of that journey.
The main theme seems to be this counterbalance between what the refugee is experiencing and what the asylum officers and host countries are looking for. If they come with too much hope, they are viewed as opportunistic rather than needy, but they also can’t be too needy and use too many social services. Refugees need to have a compelling story, even if it isn’t fully accurate, because the accurate one may not be believed, and they need to show gratitude and attempts at assimilation. They need to be “Good Immigrants,” “palatable” immigrants. And as if this partial erasure of identity isn’t enough, the quality of life during what could amount to years of waiting in various camps and apartments is sometimes truly atrocious.
For that reason, this was a hard read sometimes. While many passages hit me, this one in particular stood out: “I get comfortable on a pillow beside a shy woman at a kneading table. She has lost the use of her legs, something to do with the Taliban.” And that’s all we get about this woman. While you could argue that by not elaborating, Nayeri is contributing to the elision of identity, in just two sentences Nayeri has informed readers of the lasting impact of the Taliban while reminding us that many stories remain untold.
My only quibble is that I wasn’t always clear where we were in time. Nayeri alternates between past and present tense, and sometimes I wasn’t sure when the present-tense sections were happening, other than that it was clearly well into her adulthood.
Reading this book is a reminder of why I sometimes push myself to read nonfiction. There are important stories out there, and more people need to know about this one. This is going to stick with me for a while, especially given current world events.